Comments on: Simon Bennett speaks with Dan Tencer about Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

By: chucker

chucker — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:35:50 +0000

Why not ship him to the WJCs no matter what as I suggested? That way he gets to dominate at that tourney no matter what. If he stays fine, but still send him there. If he goes back to junior, he goes too and could get called up at the end of the year like Eberle did. I’m good either way.

By: Racki

Racki — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:34:11 +0000

Definitely agree that this team is too young. I think if RNH comes in, they’d push harder to ship Gagner out. Just a hunch. I don’t really want to see that, because I think he has more promise than most people think.

By: Grass&sOIL

Grass&sOIL — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:50:34 +0000

Even with the veteran additions to our team I feel we may still be a bit too young and think we should take a breath and just go with what we have now before introducing even more kids to the team.

RNH can lead the next wave of kids(Lander, Teubert and so on…..) into Edmonton because I don’t want to push the youth movement beyond what it is now.

If any rookie is deserving of a spot on the team next year then it would be Harti in my books but still it’s probably better to give him top line minutes with the Barons. At least for the first half of the upcoming season.

By: Grass&sOIL

Grass&sOIL — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:36:39 +0000

It is not even really about size for me anymore ether. Now that he is an Oiler I want him to enjoy some meaningful game scenario’s like Hall did in back to back Mem Cups and in the World Jrs. Let’s face it. His Rebels did not go very far in the WHL playoffs and he never got that World Jr. experience ether. I just want to see him on a big stage before he permanently cracks our roster. I think it is an important experience that all top ranked players should have before making the jump(if possible).

Lets just let the rookie trio from last season build on their momentum and hopefully by the time RNH is ready to make the team that the Oilers are a much improved team so that RNH can just slide in and not have to shoulder a big load and can instead just focus on learning the NHL game at his pace.

One thing I know for sure is that he should be playing for team Canada next Dec/Jan regardless of if he is in the CHL or NHL next year. I think most of us would agree with that plus think of all the hype with the tourney being played here in Alberta. He would be under a ton of pressure to preform and I want to see how he handles it.

Also:
Don’t the Oilers have a money stake in this upcoming Torney??? I think the Oilers and Flames are splitting profits from the World JRs.

By: Racki

Racki — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:24:38 +0000

I originally was all gung ho for Larsson too, but there’s been a tonne of positive vibe around RNH, so I’m keeping a very open mind and no longer thinking of him as the scrawny runt of the draft.

He’s got the skillset, but more importantly, he has the drive too, from what I’ve been hearing. He basically has everything on the list that Stu looks for and loves in his draft picks, which is OK by me for sure.

I won’t hide the fact that I’m still concerned about the size, but apparently he has great wheels and is very evasive. So we’ll see. I am pretty excited to find out what he can do.